Ernest Llewellyn

Ernest Victor Llewellyn CBE (21 June 1915 – 12 July 1982) was an Australian violinist, concertmaster, violist, conductor and musical administrator.

In 1933 the 17-year-old Llewellyn gave a ‘grand farewell violin recital’ at the West Maitland Town Hall.

From 1944 to 1948 he was leader of the Queensland State String Quartet (QSSQ), taking them on a tour of New Zealand in 1948 at the invitation of the Wellington Chamber Music Society.

[1] In 1949 Ernest Llewellyn and Hephzibah Menuhin (then married to an Australian and living in western Victoria) presented the complete violin sonatas of Beethoven in a series of recitals in the eastern states of Australia.

When Isaac Stern toured Australia again in 1954, he and Llewellyn played Bach's Double Concerto with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

Stern gave a concert in Sydney in July 1954 for the William Kapell Memorial Fund, and ensured that Ernest Llewellyn was the inaugural recipient.

[1] At the same time he was awarded a Fulbright grant to study teaching methods in the US, the UK and Europe for 15 months.

He intended to teach privately in Wollongong, Goulburn, Mittagong and Canberra, and to establish regional orchestras.

A year later, in September 1965, at the invitation of the Department of the Interior, he became founding director of the Canberra School of Music, immediately appointing some of the finest performers in the country to the staff, including Larry Sitsky (keyboard), Vincent Edwards (strings) and Murray Khouri (woodwind).

[2] The Canberra School of Music operated until 1976 in temporary premises that were previously the Manuka Mothercraft Centre.

[1] Llewellyn had insisted from the outset that the building should be located on a site that was both central to the Australian National University and the city centre, easily accessible for both students and patrons.

Later that month the retiring Governor-General Sir Zelman Cowen announced that the proceeds of his farewell concert would be devoted to the Ernest Llewellyn Memorial Scholarship, to help young musicians and the advancement of string playing in Australia.